Mad Woman in the Attic
by MadWoman
Summary: After GK 2, Gabriel & Grace come to understand the burden of guilt & inheritance...
1. Default Chapter Title

Mad Woman in the Attic

By [**Mad Woman**][1]

* * *

Disclaimer: 

The characters of Gabriel Knight, Grace Nakamura, Detective Mosely and the legend of the _Schattenjägers _are creations and trademarks of Jane Jensen and Sierra-On-Line. 

Apologies: 

The writer of this piece of fan fiction has taken liberties in the atmosphere, history, culture and geography of New Orleans. Please be aware the writer has NEVER been to New Orleans, although it is a life-long wish. Please also be aware that the writer is not American. As far as it is possible and made known to the writer, inaccuracies are corrected. But we are only human and therefore have to live with our mortal inadequacies. 

Thank you.

* * *

Prologue

> _But I have lived, and have not lived in vain:  
My mind may lose its force, my blood its fire,  
And my frame perish even in conquering pain,  
But there is that within me which shall tire  
Torture and Time, and breathe when I expire;  
Something unearthly, which they deem not of,  
Like the remembered tone of a mute lyre,  
Shall on their softened spirits sink, and move  
In hearts all rocky now the late remorse of love._

- Byron, from _Childe Harold's Pilgrimage_

* * *

New Orleans,  
November, 1844

The child's screams rang in his ears and they were the only sound he could hear; not even his own pounding at the heavy oak door was audible to him, or his own quickening heartbeats drumming.

"No, Papa! NO! NOOO!" Can anything be more terrible than a child's cry?

"Open the door! Phillipe! Angelique! Open the door!"

The child's hoarse cry was interrupted by a choking cough. Panic, blood pounding with the adrenaline. Jean-Baptiste abandoned his kerosene lamp by the window as he broke the glass with bare fists. He threw himself bodily into the house.

"Phillipe!" he screamed as he staggered to his feet, yelling in desperation rather than an appeal to reason -- for there was none. His friend's large hands were twisted around the daughter's think neck so that it seemed as though father was grotesquely squeezing the head out from the tube of the child's frail body.

Bleeding from cuts he did not feel Jean-Baptiste lunged and knocked the father from the child. Angelique coughed in choking gasps for air. The two men rolled on the floor as they struggled in a physical deadlock. Jean-Baptiste tried to pin his friend down to keep the latter away from the child, but he did not want to hurt Phillipe. But Phillipe had no compunction left about killing Jean-Baptiste to get to the child.

With a furious cry Phillipe doubled up his knees and kicked Jean-Baptiste square in the chest. Air flew out of lungs too quickly.

"Damn you, you devil!" Phillipe roared, face flushed with the veins straining against his throat.

"No, Papa!" Angelique pleaded between racking sobs. Phillipe was coming toward her but Jean-Baptiste grabbed the father from behind, clinging. The child whirled for the window, the only open exit from the house. Cutting herself on the jagged glass, Angelique climbed up onto the window ledge and fell over, hurting herself somemore.

"Come back here, you little slut!" her father screamed from the house. Breathless and in fright she turned, and Phillipe was suddenly at the window, a clutch out to grab Angelique's sleeping gown. She screamed as she was tugged upward. Her hands flew desperately and closed around the hot lamp. Young flesh burned around heated glass but fear overcame pain as the child flung the lamp into her father's face. The glass smashed and Father's face burst into kerosene fueled fire.

Angelique was dropped as Phillipe beat and slapped at his melting face. Flames crept down the torched head to the shoulders, and his upper body as kerosene spread. It was now Father's turn to scream. Angelique forced herself to look through the shattered, blood-stained window. Monsieur Durent was beating at Father's head with his coat, beating and whacking, trying to put the fire out. Father collapsed and twisted and rolled on the floor. Angelique stared. She wanted to remember, needed to know he was in great pain. Monsieur Durent just kept whacking the coat at Father's head.

And images of Father's burning head seared themselves into an angelic memory.

* * * * *

   [1]: mailto:_kosh_@earthling.net



	2. Default Chapter Title

Mad Woman in the Attic

****

By [**Mad Woman**][1]

* * *

Disclaimer: 

The characters of Gabriel Knight, Grace Nakamura, Detective Mosely and the legend of the Schattenjagers are creations and trademarks of Jane Jensen and Sierra-On-Line. 

Apologies: 

The writer of this piece of fan fiction has taken liberties in the atmosphere, history, culture and geography of New Orleans. Please be aware the writer has NEVER been to New Orleans, although it is a life-long wish. Please also be aware that the writer is not American. As far as it is possible and made known to the writer, inaccuracies are corrected. But we are only human and therefore have to live with our mortal inadequacies. 

Thank you.

* * *

Part One

__

I doubt sometimes whether a quiet & unagitated life  
would have suited me--yet I sometimes long for it.

-- Byron

* * *

Chapter 1

21 January, Thursday, 1997

"You, what?" The strain in Grace's perfectly articulate voice was evident, like a bowstring waiting to snap. And guess who's pulling at the cord at this perfect moment.

"Now, Gracie--" Gabriel squirmed uneasily under the fire of Grace's glare. It seemed taken for granted that he was going to be able to explain anything to her at the moment. Oh, boy, he sighed to himself. There was so much he had to explain. And the most important part was about to come through the door of St George's Books any minute now.

"I'm gone for two weeks--two mere weeks, and you decided you want to replace me?"

"Not replace you. Jesus Christ! You're irreplaceable, Gracie. I just thought that I could get someone else to look after the bookstore while you're busy. I thought maybe you could get your PhD if somebody just took over."

She scowled at that. "Whether or not I get my PhD, is my business, Gabriel. You need me here. Besides, I doubt if you can find anyone who's willing to work here with the salary you're paying--or not paying me."

And at that moment the door swung open and jingled the little bell Grace had installed. Both Grace and Gabriel turned to look at the pretty red-head standing at the entrance. She had began to hang up her jacket.

"I'm sorry, we're not open yet," Grace said politely. 

"Er--Gracie?" Gabriel was scratching his head uneasily. Grace swung a long, sharp look his way.

"Hi, so you're Grace. Hi, I'm Jill Callahan. Gabriel told me so much about you," the pretty stranger smiled.

"Really?" Grace drawled deliberately. "And I know nothing about you. Gabriel--are you going to introduce us?" Gabriel winced at the acridness just dripping with every syllable.

"Yeah, er--Gracie, Jill's our new assistant." Gabriel smiled sheepishly.

"Gabriel, may I speak with you, in private," she said quietly.

* * * * *

_Jerk! **Schattenjäger **my foot!_

Grace took off for home after Gabriel had refused to fire Jill Callahan. She could not believe that he had replaced her just like that--without consulting her. The rage inside her burned uncomfortably, heavy and choking at once. To think that she had fought with her parents to be treated like this! 

Her face still flushed whenever she thought back to her arguments with her parents. She had gone back to New Hampshire for two weeks. Her mother's back was acting up again and the pain made her testy. Perhaps it was the symbiotic relationship between mother and daughter, but her mother's physical pain meant the issue about Grace's PhD was bound to come up.

"Why?" her mother had demanded testily. Grace began with her practiced speech on wanting to experience what the real world had to offer instead of locking herself up in the academic ivory tower. She told her mother about the richness of New Orleans, and how Gabriel needed her at St George's Books. Her mother listened with a frown. Then she asked:

"Are you sleeping with him?"

"Mother!" Grace was horrified, at her mother's blatant honesty. She was flushing scarlet; something was too close to home.

"Well, are you?" 

"Mother!" How does one win an argument with one's own mother? It was one of Life's many mysteries.

Her mother studied the daughter's face for a moment, a face she knew so well from infancy to this adulthood that Grace believed her mother still refused to acknowledge. Mother and daughter were close, and Grace's heart was quickening as she was afraid that her mother could read something in her own face, something so personal she had denied even to herself.

"I just cannot understand this, Grace. You know that your father and I want the best for you."

"I know, Mother. Believe me, I know that."

"We see so much potential within you and we just want you to maximize all that you have. That is why we cannot understand your decision to give up your education!"

Grace sighed. She took her mother's hand and squeezed it so softly. It felt so small and frail in her own, yet still delicate despite the wrinkles and liver spots. Grace had always loved her mother's hands, and their long fingers. A big part of her love for her mother was caught up with the tactile memory of those fingers sweeping back her stray bangs when she was a child, and the light touch on her cheeks, the smoothing out of her dress or skirt--and the way those long white fingers danced against the black and white keys when Saiko Nakamura taught her six-year-old daughter to play the grand piano in the living room.

"I'm not forsaking my education, Mother. I'm just not--not following the academic route. Maybe I will come back to it one day, but not yet. There is something else. Something more important."

"What is it then? You say you're doing something else. But what?

"What are you doing, Grace?" Her mother had asked ever so gently, with that slight crinkle between her brows. Grace had not answered her mother then, because she could not tell her mother in any credible way of the _Schattenjägers. _

And that this moment, in her own room in New Orleans, Grace Nakamura realized that more than ever, that she could not provide herself with a credible explanation. What is she doing here? Gabriel is the _Schattenjäger._ Who is she? A sidekick? She was definitely not an assistant anymore. Jill Callahan, the second-year Business student had taken her job at St George's Books. For the past two weeks. And in this light she was hardly indispensable to Gabriel. Grace was never the one he turned to when he truly needed help, even when he was bitten by a werewolf.

_What are you doing, Grace?_ her mother had asked ever so gently. 

Grace Nakamura wished she knew.

* * * * *

Grace breathed a sigh of relief after she heaved her two weeks collection of newspaper onto her coffee-table. Mrs Degures next door had been keeping them for her during Grace's visit back to New Hampshire. She began systematically sorting the issues out according to publication, setting aside the _Washington Post_ and the _New York Times_ which were available at her parents. The_ Times-Picayune_ and the _L. A. Times_ were later arranged in chronological order, to be read later in the day. It was a trait inherited from Dr Tetsuo Nakamura, that self-fueling need to know everything that goes on in the world--from different sources. There's never anything like the whole truth, only snippets of it. The key to understanding the 'full picture' is to collect as much of the scattered pieces as possible, Grace's father used to say.

"Like a jag-saw puzzle," a younger Grace had once replied to this.

"True, but one without the picture on the front of the box, you don't have all the pieces and a lot of the time you get pieces from other jig-saw puzzles," Dr Nakamura had answered.

So it came to be that the most important lesson ingrained into a daughter's philosophy to life was taught on a father's indulgent knees. And when Grace grew too large and too old to be bounced on her father's skinny knees they worked on sharpening her mind. Father would sit on his favorite couch, his cup of tea in hand and a teenage Grace Nakamura could be found on the floor, seated around the parent's feet. Father would pick a topic, or an article they had read in one of the papers around the house that week, and ask the daughter: what is her view on this? Often Father played Devil's Advocate, challenging, debating, even mocking Grace's arguments--all these to refine the daughter's power of Reason, one that would serve her down the road.

A daughter seated on Father's knees. A student looking up a mentor's knees. 

Essence of Father was all knees and symbol of Mother all hands.

When her sorting exercise was complete, Grace picked up the pile of _The Times-Picayune_ and proceeded into her bedroom. She left them on her study desk as she checked her e-mail during the time of her absence. As she ran through the list of eighteen new mails, one particular name--Emma Kobayashi--incited a dash of unbridled excitement. She opened it immediately.

> _Hi, Grace!_

> I was visiting Yale a few months back and met Professor Barclay. We discovered our mutual acquaintance when I mentioned I was from New Hampshire. Anyway the Professor provided me your e-mail address only recently when I got back in touch for some consultations. Have I mentioned that I'm visiting Tulane University for the following three months? Thought I should drop a line. Shall we get together sometime? You could direct me to some Cajun cuisine. From the way your mother talks about you, you seemed to have gone native on us.  
Do reply. Bye for now.  
Love,   
Em.  
16 January 1997

'Gone native'? Goodness, does everyone back home think that? Grace realized that since she started 'helping' Gabriel she had not seen as much of New Orleans as she would have liked to. Maybe she should start today. Not like she's occupied with anything at the moment.

_Damn you, Gabriel!_ Grace swore suddenly.

Grace began planning her reply.

* * * * *

   [1]: mailto:_kosh_@earthling.net



	3. Default Chapter Title

Mad Woman in the Attic

****

By [**Mad Woman**][1]

* * *

Disclaimer: 

The characters of Gabriel Knight, Grace Nakamura, Detective Mosely and the legend of the Schattenjagers are creations and trademarks of Jane Jensen and Sierra-On-Line. 

Apologies: 

The writer of this piece of fan fiction has taken liberties in the atmosphere, history, culture and geography of New Orleans. Please be aware the writer has NEVER been to New Orleans, although it is a life-long wish. Please also be aware that the writer is not American. As far as it is possible and made known to the writer, inaccuracies are corrected. But we are only human and therefore have to live with our mortal inadequacies. 

Thank you.

* * *

Part One

__

I doubt sometimes whether a quiet & unagitated life  
would have suited me--yet I sometimes long for it.

- Byron

* * *

Chapter 2

21 January, Thursday, 1997

Gabriel crossed himself as he entered the chapel of the cathedral, shamefully aware of his muddy, noisy shoes as he slinked as unobtrusively as possible to the pew. He watched a priest he did not know speaking intently with a woman for a while, then went back to his business. He stared up at the stained glass windows, each frame depicting a scene of the Passion, and wondering if peace was possible for a man such as him?

Gabriel was not a praying man. Hell, he wasn't a church man either yet somehow fate had thrown him into the unenviable position as Schattenjäger. Grace seemed to think it's all such hot-shit, but more than anything, the job brought him immense heartaches and fear. And God, he had been so afraid these couple of years. So afraid of failing when what you do counts for so much. So afraid that he still had not been able to sleep at night. Nightmares replaced by other nightmares. Yet he understood it was a choice he made. He had stood against the dragon of Saint George and defied it when he was told to go back. So there was no way to go but forward, even if it meant falling off a cliff and shattering his bones.

And so he had to live with the nightmares, the fears, the sleepless lonely nights when scenes keep replaying themselves within him and he needed to come here, to the cathedral, for a bit of peace. To stare at the twelve stations of Christ's Passion and try to believe that a greater other had took on a heavier burden than he did and had triumphed over the loneliness, the despair and most of all, the fear.

But then he always ended up telling himself he was no Son of God. And inspite of his name, he was not angel, and no knight. And definitely no Shadow Hunter. 

And then he became aware that the woman he had just seen was sitting at the other end of the bench. And she was reading the latest Blake Backlash novel: The Black Wolf, written by Gabriel Knight. He had to smirk at the irony of it. 

"Hi," he said to the woman, who tucked a finger between the pages to mark her page.

"Hello," she replied properly. 

"I have not seem you around here before. New in town? Or just new in church?"

The woman seemed to consider it. "A bit of both. You do not seem like someone who comes here often."

Gabriel chuckled. "That, you're right." Then he waited, but the woman did not contribute any further comments.

"You're not going to ask why I'm here?" Gabriel wondered aloud. The woman shrugged her shoulders.

"You will tell me, if you want to. We all have our reasons for seeking sanctuary."

"Sanctuary." The idea seemed such a distant concept. "I think you got it right for me. You?"

"A hiding place," she said quietly. 

"From what?" And the woman just gazed into emptiness. Gabriel waited, surprised at his patience for this stranger so familiar to him. 

"Ghosts," she said finally. And Gabriel wondered if he could detect a tinge of pathos in that monosyllable.

"Dead ghosts, living ghosts. Both. The kind that haunts, refuses to leave. Some things displaced in time, making their unfair demands on the living present. And you give in, because you want them to go away. But they never really do--but I see you understand ghosts."

And Gabriel smiled, a soft, sad movement of the mouth. Aware of a heavy metal burden against his chest, resting on his heart. The talisman. The symbol and treasure of the _Schattenjäger._ And that dagger sheathed and hidden in his jacket's inner pocket. The dagger within to cut out his heart.

"I have some ghosts of my own. Legacy of a colorful lineage."

And the woman smiled, too. "Ghosts inherited. The ones that come with the house. The best kind," she remarked dryly.

"Also the ones hardest to exorcise."

"Yes," she said. "And so we try to live with them. Until the day they kill us or we go mad. Then we no longer care."

"Why are you telling me all these?" Gabriel asked with a child-like heart. And the woman with her sad, sad smile moved herself next to him.

"Because we speak as two strangers may speak. I have always thought that was why people engage in one-night stands. The idea of expulsing something so primal and so private to a total stranger, because they know they will never see the other again. And so they may do anything." Then she took her finger out from the book.

"I am digressing. I am sorry. Friends who are understanding, and forgiving, say I am philosophical. I just believe I ramble. Forgive me."

"No harm done," Gabriel put up his hands casually. "I'm Gabriel Knight." He offered a hand. The woman took it, and they shook.

"Author of the two Blake Backlash novels. Owner of Saint George Books. Yes, I know. I've seen you before." Gabriel laughed. 

"And I am Ashley Tremayne. Editor and occasional book critic of _Debasement Magazine_."

"Oh." Gabriel's eyes widened, impressed. Then a thought struck him.

"You hated my book."

"Wrong. I hated your book-s. Both of them. Your portrayal of the assistant, Fujitsu, was found to be particularly sexist. And so two-dimensional I can only attribute it to poor observation and sheer technical laziness."

"Ouch." Gabriel's facial muscles twitched. "But they sell good," he added defensively.

"They sell well. Yes, I have to give you that much credit. Books of such caliber reaching the _New York Times Bestsellers' List._ But then I've always had certain opinions about the general level of intelligence in the world today. Moments like these validate my beliefs."

"Sorry," Gabriel winced, but Ashley Tremayne only chortled softly in response.

"No, I like to be validated. It gives one a sense of grandeur, self-perceived intelligence and illusions of precocious wisdom." Then her face softened. "But I am candid to the point of being brutal, am I not?" she shrugged.

"I just--it just seems a little too forward for two strangers, that's all," he said.

And she nodded. "I can only attribute my candor and verbosity to our being in the House of God, a place of truth and confessions. But mark my word, outside the boundary of this place of God, you will not find me so forward. Nor truthful. Good-bye, Mr Knight. If we ever meet again, I will deny ever having had this conversation. Truth has little place in the world outside. Good night."

She left as suddenly as she had appeared, leaving Gabriel in a state of perplexity. And he did not know what to make of this little scene that had just transpired here tonight. Moments like these in our lives, when events are so jarringly out of place humans feel a compelling need to rationalize and give meaning, provide significance to them. For Gabriel, this will be such a night but he will not be able to make any connection yet in his present capacity and ignorance.

Everything has its time and place, for nothing is ever coincidental if we believe in an Omniscient God.

* * * * *

   [1]: mailto:_kosh_@earthling.net



	4. Default Chapter Title

Mad Woman in the Attic

****

By [**Mad Woman**][1]

* * *

Disclaimer: 

The characters of Gabriel Knight, Grace Nakamura, Detective Mosely and the legend of the Schattenjagers are creations and trademarks of Jane Jensen and Sierra-On-Line. 

Apologies: 

The writer of this piece of fan fiction has taken liberties in the atmosphere, history, culture and geography of New Orleans. Please be aware the writer has NEVER been to New Orleans, although it is a life-long wish. Please also be aware that the writer is not American. As far as it is possible and made known to the writer, inaccuracies are corrected. But we are only human and therefore have to live with our mortal inadequacies. 

Thank you.

* * *

Part One

__

I doubt sometimes whether a quiet & unagitated life  
would have suited me--yet I sometimes long for it.

- Byron

* * *

Chapter 3

27 January, 1997

And tonight, Gabriel dreams.

* * * * *

Jean-Baptiste could barely contain his grin as he paced the drawing room within the _de la Croix_ mansion, his long legs swinging in wide strong stride back and fro. The energy in his motion gave no indication of the fatigue from his trip from London. Then his entire body jerked toward the door to the drawing room when he heard the rapid footsteps so characteristic of the _Red Poppy of New Orleans_. He thrusted the parcel behind his back hurriedly.

"My dear flower," he smiled, and bowed. She let out a silvery chuckle and flew over the distance between them. 

"Jean-Baptiste, you have grown too strange of late," she complained, pulling at the lapels of his coat girlishly. "And what have you brought for me, sweet dear?"

The parcel was proffered with grand flourish. "You've mentioned you were an admirer of Byron. A leather-bound copy of _Childe Harold's Pilgrimage_."

Florence took the parcel from Jean-Baptiste tentatively, as though it was too much to believe in a gift such as this. She unwrapped the coarse brown paper from its content and sighed as her fingers danced over the gold letters embossed on the leather cover of the book.

"Oh! Jean-Baptiste!" Florence flung herself up to him and kissed him deeply.

Jean-Baptiste recovered himself too late from the shock of Florence's feminine attentions. He wrenched himself from her forcefully and staggered back. The taste and heat of her tongue was still animated in his mouth.

"Madame de la Croix--" he began and was not allowed to finish. Florence swung the spine of her heavy book at his face. It met cheekbone and an explosion of fiery pain.

"Madame--" he attempted not to reel under the smart blow.

A second vigorous swung with the back of the book. It connected again and again on every exposed part of his body as the lady of the mansion battered Jean-Baptiste repeatedly in energetic fury. The poor man put up one arm in feeble defense as he clench the throbbing pain in his left cheek. 

"Never call me that again! 'Madame'! I despise the word! Bastard!"

"You are de la Croix's wife!" Jean-Baptiste shouted, trying to beat away the rapid blows.

"Wife?" she threw back a mocking laughter. "Call me 'prisoner'--'slave'--whore even--but never--Never, Never Call Me Wife to de la Croix! He bought me from my parents! They worry I would not marry with my wild reputation! I was sold to the man! NOT MARRIED!"

"Mama."

Both adults halted at the tone of a child's voice and looked down, half-ashamed at Angelique de la Croix-- the five year old daughter of Florence and Jean-Baptiste's friend. The young child in her little white dress stood in the exact middle of the doorway, a stillness that hovered, watchful. Eyes darted between Jean-Baptiste Durent and her mother, and summed up everything within the unchild-like mind.

"What are you doing downstairs?" Florence de la Croix demanded, pushing back stray locks of hair behind her ear. The child turned her head to her mother slowly. It way she moved only her neck, and never the rest of herself was eerie in its effect.

"I heard something," the child said tersely. Jean-Baptiste felt like smacking the child for the timbre in her voice but he was afraid to approach her, the conscience of the guilty that would fear a five-year old child.

"There are so many things to be heard: the crickets, the rain, the slaves singing. Do you come down for every one of them?" Florence snapped. She tossed the book of Byron aside on the coffee table.

"It is not rain, and so there are no crickets. And the slaves are not allowed into the house," Angelique replied calmly. Jean-Baptiste felt his hand itching and he continued to rub his face instead.

Unexpectedly, Florence laughed. It was a genuine laughter, with a characteristic backwards toss of her head. She fell onto the couch behind her and opened her arms to her daughter. 

"Come here, my Angel," she said, staring squarely at the child. Only now did Jean-Baptiste notice how mother and daughter had the same light in their eyes. He wondered how much child would be like parent when the former bloomed into adulthood.

Obedient child that she was, Angelique approached her mother. Florence suddenly swept the daughter up onto her lap facing her. She took the child's face between her hands and examined it closely, a calculated curiosity as one observes a trapped moth or a pinned butterfly.

She stroked the child's straight dark hair slowly. Then fingers curled into clenching fists and Florence shook the locks within her grip. It must have hurted but the child remained tight-lipped, familiar to the games her mother play. "These are not my hair. Not my gold. You are your father's child with these hair. How I detest your hair."

Florence released the locks just as suddenly and moved to pry the lids on Angelique's eyes. Skins peeled from white orbs so that the peculiarity of the child's eyes was accentuated. Mother smiled into that unyielding face held up for her manual distortion.

"These eyes are mine. 'An eagle, madam, hath not so green, so quick, so fair an eye as Paris hath'. Your soul is mine despite your father's wretched face."

Jean-Baptiste tried to interrupt, "Florence, you are speaking of the child's father."

"Oh, shut up, Durent! The child knows how I hate her father. She has no delusion of any love between us, don't you, my Angel." She kissed Angelique liberally on her hair, her forehead, her eyes, her nose, her face and her lips. The child was smothered in the sudden burst of fervent maternal passion which was frightening to her. Jean-Baptiste saw the stiffness in the frail body as Florence pulled Angelique up in an embrace. The little arms hung rigid by the sides, unable to reciprocate the mother's ardent passions.

"Florence." Jean-Baptiste came over to pull the child away. Florence slapped away his arm harshly but relinquished the child by pushing her away. Angelique got to her feet and smoothed out her little white dress. As if nothing had happened she walked out of the drawing room.

"You frightened the child," Jean-Baptiste said to her. Not an accusation--Florence did not care for them--just a statement, similar to those of the weather and the state of the roads.

"Nonsense, Jean-Baptiste," she shrugged. "My child is of stronger mettle than you think." She came over and took his hands. Jean-Baptiste inhaled sharply, but did not move.

She fingered the bruise on his left cheek, and smiled triumphantly. "This is my mark. Mine," she said to herself. Her head swooped near the left side of his face and run its tongue over the reddish mark.

"Florence!" Jean-Baptiste turned his face away but she just licked the other cheek. Angered, Jean-Baptiste Durent stalked out of the drawing room.

"Coward! You come here wanting to make love to me and you end up fearing the passions of a woman!"

Jean-Baptiste turned, and said cruelly, "I came here expecting to find a lady, but all I found was a whore!"

"Eunuch! I can find myself another lover elsewhere!" she screamed after him. When he refused to look back she flung the Byron at him. 

__

I should not have given her that Byron, Jean-Baptiste thought remorsefully.

* * * * *

   [1]: mailto:_kosh_@earthling.net



	5. Default Chapter Title

Mad Woman in the Attic

****

By [**Mad Woman**][1]

* * *

Disclaimer: 

The characters of Gabriel Knight, Grace Nakamura, Detective Mosely and the legend of the Schattenjagers are creations and trademarks of Jane Jensen and Sierra-On-Line. 

Apologies: 

The writer of this piece of fan fiction has taken liberties in the atmosphere, history, culture and geography of New Orleans. Please be aware the writer has NEVER been to New Orleans, although it is a life-long wish. Please also be aware that the writer is not American. As far as it is possible and made known to the writer, inaccuracies are corrected. But we are only human and therefore have to live with our mortal inadequacies. 

Thank you.

* * *

Part One

__

I doubt sometimes whether a quiet & unagitated life  
would have suited me--yet I sometimes long for it.

-- Byron

* * *

Chapter 4

28 January, 1997

Gabriel woke to the smell of freshly baked pastry, and decided it was definitely a good day despite his strange dream the night before. And because he wanted to believe this, he got out of bed sooner than he was used to and headed for the bathroom.

After he showered, shaved and brushed, he settled himself down in front of his old typewriter. Grace had made fun of his persistence in using a typewriter in the Nineties--hell, even his publisher found it amusing. In the face of such ridicule Gabriel had always maintained that it was the first thing he had ever bought with his own money back when he was still in 

high school--and damn it if he was ever going to replace it with some hi-tech laptop or some other New Age gadget they have around these days. It shut up most people except Grace -- oh Gracie, Gracie, smart as Einstein Gracie -- who knew Gabriel too well and who knew that Gabriel never actually got around to learning how to use a computer. The Internet? 

Forget it. It goes in the category of quantum physics, German and other incomprehensible stuff in Gabriel's universe. What really counts in how well Grace knew Gabriel was the fact that she knew the first thing Gabriel really bought with his own money was that black leather jacket he used to wear all the time around sweaty New Orleans --until he lost it some years back, much to Grace's silent glee. 

Yes, Grace knew Gabriel too well -- in some aspects, much better than Gabriel's own grandmother who raised and loved him since he was an infant. It was disconcerting to Gabriel sometimes how much Grace understood about him, and how little he knew about her in turn. Maybe women are just better at things like this, Gabriel suggested to himself. And he began hitting the metal keys.

__

Blake Backlash woke with the memory of the weirdest of dreams. It was the clarity that troubled most, more like things remembered than things dreamt. A passionate southern belle who beats the men she loves--Fujitsu would definitely laugh at that. "All your women coming back to haunt you, Blake," she would say. And a child. A frightening woman-child with a hundred years staring out of those green eyes. And that--he would NEVER tell Fujitsu. She would nodded her head in that annoying way of hers and say, "I see you are into pedophilic fantasies now, Blake."

No way he was going to tell her. Uh-uh. 

Jill stuck her head through the curtains that partitioned his room from the rest of St George's Books. "This is the first time I've seen you awake before noon. Must be a blue moon tonight, Knight."

Gabriel shrugged, half-annoyed at how much Jill Callahan was like Gracie in the sardonic department. Musta been an excess while they're handing out sarcasm in the personality department, he thought quietly.

"What's that smell?" he asked, getting up to stretch himself. Jill crinkled her nose and made a deliberate gesture of sniffing the air.

"Have you been showering lately, Knight?" she shot him.

"Is that an invitation?" he rebutted. Gabriel shook his head. _Too much like Grace_.

"I'm suiting for sexual harassment," she replied smoothly. "Unless you mean the croissants I brought for breakfast, I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about."

"Croissants? Any left?"

"Sure. They're outside."

Gabriel left his room and Jill handed him a brown paper bag full of croissants. As he took one he realized Grace's art equipments were gone from their usual place behind the counter.

"Grace's been here?" 

Jill put up her legs on the cashier counter. "Yup. Early, too." She bit her lip as she looked at him, musing. "You know, she hates me."

Gabriel scratched his neck. "I know that," he said. He checked the coffee-maker and found there was no morning beverage. "No coffee?"

"I told you, Knight: it's not in my job description. And don't ya dare try to change the subject. You shoulda told her before you hire me. If you've treated me like that, I would've hit you, Knight. Damn hard, too. You're lucky she's civilized, man."

"I was just trying to help her. I thought she needed time off--"

"Don't you think she would have done the hiring herself if she thought she needed time off? You are not a wise man, Knight. I can't believe I'm your fan. Reality does diminish the myth, doesn't it?"

Gabriel started looking around the store, the conversation moving in a direction he did not want to encourage any further. Then the magazine stand brought out a memory.

"Do we have this month's _Debasement Magazine_?"

Jill Callahan threw him a bored look. "Of course we do. God, you can't run this place without me, can you? Can I have a raise, Boss? You need me too much and Grace's definitely not coming back any time in the near future."

"Where is it?" Gabriel asked impatiently, looking around.

"Point-of-sale, Knight," Jill said nonchalantly as she lifted a coffee-table book from the cashier counter to reveal a small pile of this month's Debasement Magazine. Gabriel grabbed one and went back into his room. He laid back in bed and decided he was going to remain in the horizontal position for the rest of the day. He turned the first page, and came to the editorial. 

__

She's the editor, right? He looked down at the bottom of the page, and sure enough, a flourish of a signature, and the neat type beneath it: _Ashley C. Tremayne, Editor-in-Chief_. He leapt back to the top of the page.

**Editorial**

January, 1997

__

(Disclaimer: Don't worry, I'll be brief. Hopefully)

Part of the amusement and agony of being editor of _Debasement _is having to go through the mail every month for the feedback on our little rag of a magazine here. Notice I have used 'mail' here instead of the usual 'fan-mail', because right before we started the magazine we knew we weren't going to please a lot of people. In fact, our very intent was to tick off a lot of people out there. Our political views aside, everyone working on _Debasement _have a common goal--and that is to make you care. If it means making you angry in the process, by all means necessary we shall achieve that aim.

And so, for all you angry letter-writers out there, we appreciate your response. We strive to please, people. And as for those of you who have sent in the threats on our staff, your letters have found their way to the nearest friendly police department. (We have also noticed that many of the death threats do not carry the writers' return addresses. Personally I find that kind of cowardice repugnant, to have the temerity to terrorize hardworking members of my team but none of the strength of conviction to stand by their anger. Flaccid anger is no anger at all, guys. Grow up and get a hobby, assholes.)

For those who fall under the saner part of our reader demographics, many of you expressed further interest in Jade Nolan, aka: _The Mad Woman in the Attic_. As always, we strive to please. There will be a follow-up soon (hopefully in the next issue but you never know) with our free-lancing writer errant, Cristel A. Nolan. She's on tour with _The Mad Woman in the Attic_ presently--and for those of you who asked if there was a relation between Cristel and Jade Nolan, well--your guess's as good as mine. Anyway, there's a schedule of the _Mad Woman in the Attic Tour _on page 28 for anyone interested. Catch Jade Nolan with her acoustic guitar, people. She's GOOD.

And then there are some strange requests. I seemed to have acquired a following with my editorial here, because a few of you have wrote in to ask my philosophy of life. Duh? What in hell is that? And Jonah Carmichael wrote in to ask me what books have I read lately. The last time a guy asked me that he was trying to pick me up. I married him by the way, but then I'm separated now--yet it has always struck me as the best pick-up line ever. Guys, take notes. Asking a girl what's she has been reading make her thinks you're interested in her mind, and her interests. Of course it may backfire if she thinks you're just a geek. It's like condoms I'm afraid: effective, yes, but not 100%. Back to Jonah's letter anyway--you'll know what books I read by checking out the book reviews, right here in _Debasement._

We've also heard from Charlie Jamison, who asks why is it the best writers we have are all women? He cites Cristel Nolan, Angeline Lang, and myself (be still, my beating heart) as the cream of the crop. The natives are restless with the insinuations of this letter, especially members of the male species. They demand a response from me. So, Charlie, firstly: how do you know they're females? And when was I ever a writer? I am editor and so in this little universe known as _Debasement,_ I am GOD. As fair as I know, GOD's sexless (at least that's the Catholic doctrine). Does it matters whether a writer is male or female? So you prefer the female (or maybe not) writers. So? George Hicks gets the most fan mail every month. We know, because the natives compare the statistics. And by the way, a lot of the death threats are often personally addressed to yours truly, because I get the final say what gets printed. So everytime you get an article you hate, I have as much to do with that as when you get an article you love.

Remember, the purpose of _Debasement_ had always been to make you angry and make you CARE. A lot of effort goes into the magazine and I'm proud of each and every one of them. You make not like what they have to say (hell, I don't always like what they have to say and I'm GOD here) --but at least in America we respect their right to say it. **

So, enough of the preamble. Hope you enjoy this month's issue. People worked their butts off for it afterall. And, see you in 30.

__

Ash C. Tremayne

Editor-in-Chief

**_Of course this right extents to death-threat writers, the Ku Klux Klan, the Hare Krishna, Newt Gingrich and other looneys tunes out there. But then this is an imperfect universe._

Gabriel checked page twenty-eight and realized _The Mad Woman in the Attic Tour_ was in New Orleans this week--in _The Attic_, the avant-garde restaurant where all those amateur performers and poets hang out. Concert starts seven every night, till this Sunday.

And Gabriel decided, why not?

* * * * *

   [1]: mailto:_kosh_@earthling.net



	6. Default Chapter Title

Mad Woman in the Attic

****

By [**Mad Woman**][1]

* * *

Disclaimer: 

The characters of Gabriel Knight, Grace Nakamura, Detective Mosely and the legend of the Schattenjagers are creations and trademarks of Jane Jensen and Sierra-On-Line. 

Apologies: 

The writer of this piece of fan fiction has taken liberties in the atmosphere, history, culture and geography of New Orleans. Please be aware the writer has NEVER been to New Orleans, although it is a life-long wish. Please also be aware that the writer is not American. As far as it is possible and made known to the writer, inaccuracies are corrected. But we are only human and therefore have to live with our mortal inadequacies. 

Thank you.

* * *

Part One

__

I doubt sometimes whether a quiet & unagitated life  
would have suited me--yet I sometimes long for it.

-- Byron

* * *

Chapter 5

Grace had signed herself later in the afternoon for a guided tour around some of the plantation mansions in New Orleans, a quest to make up for lost time, and perhaps also to kill the time that stretches when you are no longer needed. 

They were brought there in a mini-bus. The bus drove through a set of large iron gates, and proceeded through a wide shady path that cut through a large forested area of the plantation. Grace was impressed by the sheer size of the property and wondered how the master of this plantation would have been regarded in 19th century New Orleans. He would have been respected, and even feared then as Le Bon Temps was one of the largest plantation mansion in Louisiana. In an aside Grace wondered about the financial status of its present owner that had been reduced to putting up the property for tourist visitation. She had often heard of these old Creole families that had little else but title and pride to their names.

They were met by their guide for the tour, a Mrs McClure who lived in the mansion. She also serves as a curator of the de la Croix Family Archive. Grace was mildly intrigued by these large Creole families that had archives for everything pertaining to the family, from Great-Grandfather's sword used during the Battle of New Orleans to Baby's first tooth or photographs of Baby Crawling, Baby Walking, Baby Wetting itself and Baby Breathing.

Grace barely paid attention to Mrs McClure as she introduced the history of the place, from its construction somewhere in the middle of the 1700s. She was preoccupied with the decor and the antique furniture, most of it French, of course. An aesthetic blend of light colors--predominantly white, gold or cream, with occasional dashes of flamboyant velvet or watered silk. And she believed that velvet couch in the middle of the room was from the time of Louis XIV. Brocade chairs. Of course. Gilted gas lamps of painted glass. Crystal candleholders on the mantel over the red-brick fireplace--frosted crystals gilted with gold and silver, patterned with lilies. A faint aroma from the half-burnt candles--lavender scented. An antique China vase with fresh white and pink Birds of Paradise. There was an Old World feel to the place as soon as she entered it, along with a smell of nostalgia and the dusty musk of preserved age. She touched the curtain drapes briefly as she moved near the windows; it was real silk. She glanced out and looked out to a large garden with neat geometrically shaped beds of flora--definitely well-tended--low green bushes and shrubs and some stone benches around the place. The fresh scent of greenery drifted in with the humid breeze and somewhere out of Grace's sight was carried with the breeze the swooshing hum of a water fountain. 

Grace was trailing behind the rest of the tour as the group was being led up the stairs. The staircase with its polished brass banister and waxed gray marble steps. Gray with veins of black quartz. She had deliberately distanced herself to spend more time just exploring the sitting room of Le Bon Temps. She paused before a alcove now with a small altar set up for the Virgin Mary. It was the exquisite marble figure of the Virgin Mary that caught her eye. She bent forward to examine it closer, and found the gossamer web of gold leaves on the garment of the figure too intricate to be cheap. Nothing below a thousand in this day and age. And it appeared old, like the rest of the room. This only meant the family owning the mansion was so rich they could afford to keep something so expensive and still maintain the mansion. Then she wondered again why the Bon Temps was being put up for a tourist visitation.

She could still hear the footsteps of the rest of the tour upstairs, and the voice of the tour guide, Mrs McClure, the middle-aged Southern lady with the most impeccable manners and speech.

She moved on to the art works that hung on the walls around the room. There were several oil paintings. It was mainly the largest painting that caught her eye. It was a portrait, and very well-done too. In it a woman was seated with a small child standing by her side. The woman was light-haired, the lighting accentuating the golden glow of her hair and around her face, while child was dark, both in features and in the almost unflattering allocation of light for her. It was as though all the artist's attention was on the woman, (perhaps the mother) and the child was just an inconsequential piece of accessory, like a brooch, or a small ring. But Grace marked the similar deep green of their eyes and especially around the eyes there was similarity. Yet the nature of their countenance was disturbing. The girl was all seriousness, not the impatience of a normal children over having to stand still for a prolonged period of time. Instead it was aware, understanding. A precociousness that was disconcerting. The woman however seemed all the child, the corner of her lips just curled so subtly, fluttering on the edge of a mischievous smirk. Like Gabriel.

Grace breathed deeply as she engaged in self-castigation. _You are here to experience New Orleans, Grace. Forget about the Schattenjäger JERK for a moment! You've been fired!_

She checked small cursive signature at the lower left corner of the painting. She could barely make out a _'G. Jarre.'_ She wondered why the name seemed familiar, but shrugged it off.

Then she came to a set of sliding doors. Curious, Grace opened them, and found the dining room. Someone was having a cheesecake with tea at that very moment. Dressed in casual jeans and a pleated worker's shirt, she seemed all too at home to be a tourist.

The stranger rose erect to meet Grace. One at either side of the door they both stood silently still, watching. The stranger had short dark hair--an expensive haircut by the look of it, and uncanny deep set eyes. Two straight strokes of eyebrows gave her candid stare a shadowed predatory quality to it. She scanned Grace up and down in a quick visual sweep and came to the most logical conclusion.

"This is not part of the tour," she said simply. There was an accent in her voice, but not New Orleans--a slight British to it in fact.

"I'm sorry, but do you live here?" Grace asked politely. 

"Maybe." Matter-of-fact. 

"I know this may be an unusual request, but I was wondering if--" 

Another female sauntered into the dining room from the doorway behind the stranger. She was younger, Grace judged her to be between eighteen to earlier twenties. She carried herself with an ease around the dining room that also hinted that she belonged here. But in contrast with the dark-haired stranger she was blond, with a haircut that was boyishly shorter. She wore a black _The Sandman_ T-shirt and blue jeans cut off at the knees, somewhat fitting for her youth.

"Who's this?" the blond asked.

"A lost sheep," Dark-hair replied.

"Ah," and all the wisdom of twenty odd years summed up in that terse response. Then, "Do you believe in God?"

"Pardon?" Grace was baffled.

"Jesus Christ. Do you believe in him?" Blond glided over and placed both hands over Grace's. "Trust in Jesus Christ, my child, and You. Shall. Be. Saved. That's right, all you lost lambs out there, Jesus Christ is there for you! Just BELIEVE, my people! BELIEVE in Jesus Christ and you SHALL BE FOUND!"

Grace was genuinely tickled by the antics of this young blond stranger, the deliberate way she went about imitating a TV evangelist, or 'salesmen-churchmen' the way her mother called them, those con-artists who promise cures and blessings as long as you send in the cheques. She chuckled a little until she saw the unforbidding expression on Dark-Hair.

"Jade. What was that for?" Dark-Hair intoned. Blond (or Jade) just shrugged carelessly.

"Just living up to my image, Ash. Hi, I'm Jade. Sourpuss there's Ashley. I call her Ash. You may call her Miss Tremayne."

"Hello, I am Grace Nakamura," Grace smiled back. Jade beamed with the carefreeness that came with her youth. Grace wondered if she had ever been that young.

"How impressive," Ashley Tremayne drolled. "You were asking something a moment ago?"

"I was wondering if you're the owner of _Le_ _Bon Temps_. Or at least if you might know them."

"Yeah, Ashley owns this place. Don't you, Ash-Tray?" Jade teased rudely. Apparently Ashley must be used to it because it hardly enticed the bat of an eyelid.

"Well, I was wondering if I could be allowed to paint this mansion. It's so beautiful."

"Yeah, it's great isn't it? And the view of the plantation's great too. That's why I live up in the attic. Of course there's other reasons for that too, but--"

"Just take photos. Like everyone else," Ashley cut in. She seemed impatient and exasperated with Jade but she continued to stare. She was starting to get on Grace's nerves.

"Oh, c'mon. It's perfectly fine." That was Jade. Grace likes her.

"Don't be crazy," Ash retorted. Jade gave a bubbly laugh in reply.

"_Mad Woman in the Attic_, remember? Trying to live up to a name here."

"So, now that we are onto living up to glorified nomenclatures, perhaps we should examine 'Jade'. I believe it is a stone prized for its brilliant lucidity. Perhaps you could aspire for that instead?" Ashley rebutted unexpectedly.

"Nope. Real world's too depressing. I like my hallucinogenic visions better. Just like Joan of Arc."

"They burned her."

"All geniuses are touched with fire, Ash-Tray. And my fire never dies."

"So are the damned in hell."

Grace observed, at this protracted instant, that the chairs in the dining room are imported Japanese lacquered teak. On the backs there are carvings of the traditional Japanese cranes inlaid with mother-of-pearls. Fascinating.

"You must be really lucky that I'm feeling too high to insult you," Jade swung back. Ashley stared back.

"You're really lucky that I'm too civilized to smack you."

"Ash-Tray, go to Hell," Jade beamed cheerfully.

"As long as I am with you, I am in Hell."

"You bring with you your personal bit of Hell, Ash."

Grace tried to smile back, but it came out awkward. "I'm sorry, I have to go," she said hesitantly, knowing how lame that sounded.

"Goodbye, Miss Nakamura." Ashley Tremayne went back to her cheesecake.

Jade pushed through the sliding doors just before Grace slid them shut. The former shrugged a little, and inquired, "You know _The Attic_, right here in New Orleans?"

"Yes, it's a fancy theme restaurant, isn't it. For all the artsy-fartsy crowd."

"Well, yeah." Jade grinned. "Look, if you're not too busy tonight, or anytime this week, why don't you swung by _The Attic_ in the evening. Say, around seven."

"You work there?"

"Technically, yeah. I'm on tour and since the gang at _The Attic_ owns my contract I need to stop at every _Attic _

whenever I'm in town."

"You're a singer?" Grace was surprised. Then she recognized Jade. "You're Jade Nolan? Nolan? I thought--" 

"Parents divorced. I took my mother's name. Cool, huh? So, seeing you?"

And Grace decided, "Why not?"

* * * * *

The tour continued outside the mansion and onto parts of the plantation itself. It meant walking quite a while because of the mini-bus was not allowed beyond the front of the house. Behind the mansion was the slave quarters and other amenities the earlier owners had built. Grace was surprised to learn that it was basically self-contained, with its own school, hospital and even a small church on the Bon Temps. Then she wondered about the existence of a school when slave owners rarely cared for educating their slaves. She asked Mrs McClure that.

"Oh, but the servants had children. And the school provided classes for both children of servants whether they were white or free people of color," Mrs McClure replied.

"What about the master's own children?" Grace asked. "Do they share the school with the other children?"

"Oh, no. Of course not. A private tutor was usually employed for the master's children. And the tutor usually lived in the mansion with the family."

They visited the church next. As a form of respect, Grace dipped her fingers into the fountain of holy water and genuflected even though she was Methodist. Many of the tourists followed her example and Grace could see that Mrs McClure was pleased at this. When they happened to meet each other's eyes Mrs McClure smiled to her privately.

Grace looked up the altar at the slightly larger than life clay sculpture of the Virgin Mary. It was not painted, and the earthy gray hue of the sculpture gave an ascetic contrast to the twelve stained-glass window along the walls next to the pews--each window depicting one of the twelve disciples of Jesus. But it was the one of Judas Iscariot hanging on the tree after his guilt overcame him that was the most eye-catching. Grace found it interesting that the artist had thought to include this here. 

"Beautiful, aren't they?" Mrs McClure said from behind her. Grace started.

"I'm sorry?"

"The glass windows. They were designed by Gilbert Jarre around 1830."

__

Jarre. G. Jarre. "Did he do the large portrait back in the mansion?" Grace asked.

"You've noticed, I see. Yes, he did. Madame Florence de la Croix was a patron of the multi-talented artist, and commissioned many art pieces for the Bon Temps from him. In fact, after the Madame died, her husband commissioned the Virgin Mary and the designs for the stained window for the second church."

"Second church."

"This is the second church," Mrs McClure said, gesturing around her. "The first church was burned down around 1840. The poor lady of the house, Madame Florence de la Croix was disfigured in an accident some time before them. She had been a vain but exceptionally beautiful woman for all the life she had known, and she turned absolutely insane over it. Her husband, Monsieur Phillipe de la Croix took care of her personally because she could not bear anyone seeing her the way she was. He was a devoted husband. But one night when he was asleep she ran out of the house and came to the church. A fire broke out, and it was assumed that Florence de la Croix, in her frenzy, started the fire. It razed the first church to the grounds, and killed the lady of the house in the process. They found her charred remains near the altar."

"But, why isn't the Madonna painted. Looks a little plain."

"It was Monsieur de la Croix's orders. In tribute to his dead second wife, Isabelle. The church was rebuilt in the middle of 1843. Around the same time Phillipe de la Croix's second wife and his infant son died in a fire that broke out in the nursery. He commissioned the Virgin Mary soon after she died."

"I see."

"You know, there is a legend. They say that every night on the date of the second Madame de la Croix's death, the statue of Mary will weep blood."

Grace tried to hold back her skepticism on this. While she had witnessed a few miracles in her lifetime she was not prepared to believe every superstition and old wives' tale.

"Have you seen this?" she asked. Mrs McClure looked uneasy.

"Never," she said tightly, and moved away.

Grace looked up at the Virgin Mary. A husband's tribute to his wife to leave it unpainted.

* * * * *

At the end of the tour, Grace and the rest of the group were led back up the mini-bus that had brought them here. Grace had just decided that she was going to the library for a little research on the Bon Temps when she spotted a red Honda driving up the dirt path. There was something familiar about the woman driver that came out. Suddenly, Grace waved at the driver, who was surprised at first, but she waved back.

"Hold on a second," Grace told the driver as she forced her way down the bus, much to the disgruntled disapproval of the people trying to get up.

"Em!" Grace laughed as the best friend she had ever known since she was four.

"My goodness, I e-mailed you a few days ago," Emma Kobayashi said breathlessly as she put her arm over Grace's shoulder. "What are you doing here?"

"I'm touring the place," Grace replied. "What about you?"

"I'm meeting someone, about my research. My God, you look good. Look, are you free tonight. We MUST meet for dinner. I MUST have your address."

"Sure. How about this place called _The Attic_? There's a performance there tonight. It should be good. We'll have dinner, then talk. You know, catch up. How long have it been? The last time I saw you, you told me you got tenure at Princeton. That have been, like, seven years?"

"Yeah," Emma Kobayashi smiled. Just then, a jeep drove up past them. Grace saw that it was that girl, Jade. 

"Look, Grace--I'm sorry. I'm meeting somebody. Six tonight--look, can you pick me up? I'm not that certain of New Orleans streets yet. Here, I'll give you my address." She took out a notebook and scribbled on a page. She ripped it out of the notebook and handed it to Grace.

"Sure," Grace piped as she kept the address. "My goodness, Em. This is such a coincidence."

"Maybe," Emma Kobayashi shrugged. "Just that I don't believe in coincidence."

* * * * *

* * *

   [1]: mailto:_kosh_@earthling.net



	7. Default Chapter Title

Mad Woman in the Attic

****

By [**Mad Woman**][1]

* * *

Disclaimer: 

The characters of Gabriel Knight, Grace Nakamura, Detective Mosely and the legend of the Schattenjagers are creations and trademarks of Jane Jensen and Sierra-On-Line. 

Apologies: 

The writer of this piece of fan fiction has taken liberties in the atmosphere, history, culture and geography of New Orleans. Please be aware the writer has NEVER been to New Orleans, although it is a life-long wish. Please also be aware that the writer is not American. As far as it is possible and made known to the writer, inaccuracies are corrected. But we are only human and therefore have to live with our mortal inadequacies. 

Thank you.

* * *

Part One

__

I doubt sometimes whether a quiet & unagitated life  
would have suited me--yet I sometimes long for it.

-- Byron

* * *

Chapter 6

__

Blake Backlash flashed a debonair smile at the seductive female poised near the bar.

"No good." Gabriel crossed out the line and started again.

__

Blake flashed a smile, a debonair killer smile. The fine female form caught it--like a glint of gold--and sauntered slowly, but oh, so, seductively towards him.

Much better, Gabriel decided.

"Excuse, what does it take to get some service around here?"

"What?" Gabriel stared in blank astonishment at the stranger who had breezed into his room--just like that. "I'm sorry, what do you want?"

The man held up a paperback. "I suppose you expect me to pay for this? Oh, man! I can't believe the kinda service around here. You actually gotta force the money on them."

"Yeah, er--how much is that?"

The customer glared at him. "Forget it," he stalked out. Gabriel blinked stupidly to himself, then went out. 

The customer had left--the bell near the door was still jingling. Gabriel discovered to his surprise that Jill was no where in sight. 

* * * * *

At the library, Grace had found a book by a writer named Ian Vaugh. The book explored the history of some of the larger plantation houses of New Orleans. Within it, she found a large chapter on _Le Bon Temps_. She decided to borrow it, and read it at her leisure.

* * * * *

Gabriel was caught by surprise when Jill emerged from the store room with another young woman around her age. 

"So, that's where you've been," he said.

"You were looking for me, Boss?" Jill asked calmly. Her companion just smiled and looked away.

"Just wondering where my assistant went to, that's all," Gabriel tried to sound nonchalant, but failed. He was pissed. This was something Grace would not do. _Grace--_

--Is not working here anymore, Gabriel thought to himself.

"Sorry, Knight. I was just showing my friend around the place I work,"

"Hi, Jade Nolan," the companion smiled, waving.

Gabriel ceased his forehead. "That sounds familiar."

Jade shrugged. "I'm more famously known as _The Mad Woman in the Attic_. Cool, huh."

"Oh, so that's where I heard your name. You're performing tonight, right?"

"Yeah. Look, I gotta go." To Jill, "See you tonight, yes?"

"Yeah, sure. Bye." They embraced in a reluctant farewell before Jade left the store.

"You're going to The Attic tonight," Gabriel said evenly. Jill nodded. 

"You were intending to go, too, Boss?" Jill asked.

"Maybe," he replied.

"Look, a table's been reserved for Jade. My name's on the VIP list. If you're interested you can come with me--if you don't mind sitting with me and her sister that is."

"Her sister? Is she pretty?" Gabriel smiled.

"I don' t think you're her type, Knight," Jill smiled back condescendingly.

"What about Jade?" Jill almost choked on that.

"Definitely not Jade, Knight."

"Why not?"

"Just trust me on this."

* * * * *

   [1]: mailto:_kosh_@earthling.net



	8. Default Chapter Title

Mad Woman in the Attic

****

By [**Mad Woman**][1]

* * *

Disclaimer: 

The characters of Gabriel Knight, Grace Nakamura, Detective Mosely and the legend of the Schattenjagers are creations and trademarks of Jane Jensen and Sierra-On-Line. 

Apologies: 

The writer of this piece of fan fiction has taken liberties in the atmosphere, history, culture and geography of New Orleans. Please be aware the writer has NEVER been to New Orleans, although it is a life-long wish. Please also be aware that the writer is not American. As far as it is possible and made known to the writer, inaccuracies are corrected. But we are only human and therefore have to live with our mortal inadequacies. 

Thank you.

* * *

Part One

__

I doubt sometimes whether a quiet & unagitated life  
would have suited me--yet I sometimes long for it.

-- Byron

* * *

Chapter Seven

__

The Attic, known as the _Hard Rock Cafe_ for the literary intellectuals, set up shop within the French Quarters of New Orleans, Louisiana two years after its first branch in Manhattan. It capitalized on New Orleans' reputation as the place of residence of many famous and occasionally even legendary literary figures--from the modern gothic writers Anne Rice and Gabriel Knight, to Pulitzer and Nobel Prize winner, William Faulkner. Much is exploited on the New Orleans as a throbbing pulse of American literature, and this was The Attic's success. Fans who had come to seek out the mansion where Louis met Lestat the Vampire, or St. George Books where Blake Backlash laid the alluring Voodoo Queen Maria Gladys--all of them, every single one of them are drawn to The Attic.

But this week, just for this week, the whole of Louisiana and the American South comes to _The Attic_ for _The Mad Woman in the Attic_--Jade Nolan. Angelic Goddess of the Acoustic Guitar. 

Let the Mad Woman Out. Never, never put her Fire Out.

In _Jane Eyre_, written by Charlotte Brontë, when Bertha--the original _Mad Woman in the Attic_ was escaped from her confinement for the last time, she set the whole house on Fire.

So tonight in _The Attic_, let Jade Nolan out. And let her set the house on Fire.

* * * * *

It was only after they had arrived in The Attic that Grace and Emma Kobayashi found to their chagrin that they were not as earlier as they had thought they were. There were no tables left and the staff at the entrance expressed little optimism in them getting a seat tonight.

"You shoulda called last week," he told Grace.

"It was a last minute decision," Grace explained in exasperation.

"I can't help you there. You'll have to wait in the line with the others. We'll let some of them in at seven, when the show starts but then it's standing room only, and no dinner."

Grace sighed, glancing back at Emma guilty. "Well, thanks. Look, Em, I'm sorry. I should have called?"

Emma shrugged. "Tough luck. So, where do we go?"

"Grace?"

Grace turned to the direction of the voice, eyes widened in disbelief at first, then narrowed when she saw Jill with Gabriel. Jill smiled lightly back at her as she moved up to the man working in _The Attic_. 

"Do you have a Jill Callahan on the list?"

The staff checked a clipboard. Then he looked up, and nodded, "Yes. Miss Tremayne had added it in. Janice," he motioned to a waitress. "Please follow her to your seat. Janice, bring Miss Callahan and her guest to the table reserved by Miss Tremayne."

Gabriel fidgeted where he stood. Jill said to Grace, "If you don't mind sharing a table, I could get you in."

"No, thanks, we're going somewhere else," Grace replied flatly. 

"Are we?" Emma Kobayashi chirped at once. Grace frowned at her friend.

"I thought you might want authentic New Orleans," Grace said.

"You suggested this place, Grace. Besides, I want to meet your friends. Hello, Emma Kobayashi," she greeted Gabriel.

Gabriel shook her hand. "Gabriel," he said.

"Her boss," Emma concluded. Grace rolled back her eyes in resignation.

"So?" Jill questioned. Janice, the waitress, was waiting.

"Thanks," Grace said reluctantly as she followed the waitress into the restaurant.

Gabriel happened to meet Emma's eyes as he was walking in. There was an amused glimmer the way she regarded him.

It's going to be a long night, he sighed.

* * * * *

"You're here for research?" Grace asked as they waited for their orders to arrive. Gabriel and Jill across them, with a seat between him and Grace. Their table was a strange multi-ethnic combination of one German, one Irish and two Japanese--all Americans.

"Yes, along with the compulsory teaching I have to do. Afterall, Tulane did invite me to speak on French Literature of the 19th Century, particularly the Marquis de Sade. Interesting man. Nuts of course, but you have to admire some of his writings. Imagine a Japanese-American delivering lectures on French Literature and the essays of Marquis de Sade. Mother would be outraged."

"I imagine they expect you to talk more about haiku and sushi."

"Actually, I do," Emma smiled. " I have often impressed upon my students the aesthetic brevity of a haiku. Especially when it comes to their theses. Goodness, the students just ramble on with their essays," she moaned.

"How do your students find you?"

"Oh, they are just awed with adoration. When they're not awed with confusion that is."

Grace laughed heartily. "Yes, I remember. The girl who read Camus in original French and did her book report in the same language. You were awe-inspiring even back in junior high."

"French lessons at seven, German at nine. You can't help being over-educated with my parents. But I truly cannot conceive of any self-respecting academic reading _L'Etranger _in translation."

Grace furrowed her brows in chagrin. "Em, I do that." Kobayashi moved a hand to her chest in mocked horror.

"I have also succumbed to reading Japanese in translation. May I be faulted for that too?" Grace teased. Emma Kobayashi lifted her hands in surrender.

"I confess, I am guilty of the same crime," she continued, sighing. Then, "I am a Professor of French Literature with several well-known papers to my name. I speak French and German more fluently than many native-speakers and I know enough Russian to make a Russian sailor blush--but circumstances have been contrived in such a manner that I do not possess enough Japanese to order sushi in an Osaka restaurant. The irony of it. The second generation Japanese syndrome. My parents used to beat their chests in grief over our not being able to speak what they call, 'the native tongue'. Goodness, Mark and I were raised American by our parents. They assimilation on themselves and on their children. Can they truly blame us if we're more American than Japanese?"

"We _are_ Americans."

"Japanese-Americans," Emma said with feelings. "All my life, I am clearest on one thing: I will never be judged the same way as a WASP American. I have to be better and smarter to succeed. I hate it when I see Asian-Americans in school not working hard. Everything we have, is a gift. I cannot accept anyone throwing chances away."

"Are you referring to me, Em?" Grace said quietly. Kobayashi smiled wanly. She said to Gabriel:

"Do you think she's throwing away her chances?"

Gabriel shrugged non-commitedly and glanced in Jill's direction. His present store assistant shrugged with a smirk and just looked away. He returned to their conversation only to find Grace glaring at him for no reasons at all. _What's with her? PMS?_

The coolness around their table was broken by the arrival of a new addition. Sombre and stately in a cream blouse and black velvet pants-suit, Ashley Tremayne stared down at Jill, and said simply, "So, you're _She_."

"Hi. Jade mentions you all the time in her letters."

"She must write short letters."

"Not to me."

"Doubtless she has much to recount of her multifarious romantic indiscretions," Ashley retorted. She shifted her eyes around the room, unsettled.

"Hi, you might remember me," Gabriel smiled, waved. Ashley stared down her nose at him.

"No, not really," she breathed. Quietly, Grace snickered. Jill just smirked.

"What--you don't remember--from the cathedral--Gabriel Knight?" Gabriel was flummoxed.

"Ah." Recognition dawned. "The writer. The bad writer."

"Surely that's a matter of opinion. Look--you really don't remember me? We've met--last night," Gabriel was starting to break into sweat here. Jill touched his arm lightly, chuckling.

"Look, Knight--quit while you're ahead," she smirked.

"Yes, Mr Gabriel Knight. I do not know what kind of pick-up lines you practice on your species of floozies, but I hardly believe you and I move in similar social circles."

"Touché, Knight," Jill said softly. Gabriel crossed his arms and shifted in his seat. Then, "You're a snob, you know that?" Jill threw into Ashley's face. "Jade never mentioned that 'bout you."

"That is a lesser sin compare to _She _and my sister," Ashley returned.

Jill turned her chair to face Gabriel. "Don't you just _lurve _the way she refers to me in the pronoun? Like something out of a Stephen King novel--_She. It._ Cool, huh?"

"She. From Haggard's famous gothic novel. 'She Who Must Be Obeyed'. Do not expect me to allow what you do to my sister."

"I did nothing to her."

"That is an assessment I do not share." 

"And one you are too narrow-minded to accept. You're nothing like your sister. Or your mother."

"You are aware of course, that you are attempting parallel between two clinically insane women and yours truly. In this context it hardly seems unflattering for unshared family characteristics."

"Grace," Emma Kobayashi intervened, "You must take me out more often with your friends. They are so much fun. Much better than dusty academics."

Grace shook her head, thoroughly embarrassed. She glared at Gabriel, whom she saw as the root cause of her friend having to witness this confrontation between two strangers. But the accused was at this very moment fuming with his own steam. Perhaps as an icing to the cake, Jill suddenly struck a hand gesture which many cultures understood to be socially unacceptable.

Ashley Tremayne half-sneered, gloating over a battle won perhaps. Then a hand grabbed her arm from behind, and an older woman, somewhere in her mid-thirties, whispered hesitantly into her ear.

"She will be here," Ashley snapped at the older woman. 

"Well then, where is she?"

"I have no idea."

"Why not?"

"Am I my sister's keeper?" Ashley barked, agitation straining at the veins near her throat.

"In this case you are. Look, Tremayne: Your sister's contract states explicitly on the penalties should she fail to perform on any _Attic _scheduled concert. I don't have to--"

"Oh, of course you don't have to remind me of your blasted contract! You keep reminding me of that damned piece of document everytime you get within a five feet radius of me! Forgive my French, Grayson but _BUG OFF_! She'll be here! She loves the spotlight and this whole _Mad Woman in the Attic_ persona! God! You people feed a damn delusional child these fantasies and expect me to pick up the shit! Well, now, stuff it up yours!" Grayson stalked off. Tremayne turned to Emma unexpectedly:

"I did not realize you were acquainted with certain present company, Professor Kobayashi."

"Well," Emma shrugged. "Neither did I." 

Ashley Tremayne sneered. Then she saw Grayson gesturing to her. "Excuse me," she said to no one in particular, and left.

"Well, there is an accent but her French was most fluent. And so eloquent," Emma said light-heartedly. Sensing the prevailing heaviness around the table, she asked aloud, "Who was that, the one who argued with Ms Tremayne?"

Jill sighed, answered, "Most probably Danielle Grayson: Jade's manager from _The Attic_ _Records_. Jade calls her Dani. Most people does--except for Ashley Tremayne of course. She called Dani, Grayson. When she's feeling civil that is. Most of the time Tremayne calls her something else."

"A lot of tension between those two," Emma remarked. "Yet both of them are worrying over the same person. I can't wait for this infamous Jade Nolan to make her appearance."

"It's still early for the performance anyway," Jill said distractedly.

A young man, barely out of his early twenties, had stepped nervously on the semi-circle stage set for all the performance and recitals in _The Attic_. As if through mutual respect, there was a hushed silence from the audience as they anticipated the poetry recital.

Grace checked her watch. 

5:25 pm.

* * * * *

7:25 pm. 

The waiter had cleared their tables more than an hour ago. Grace was restless in her seat and Gabriel was obviously uncomfortable. Jill was no better, biting her fingernails. Just as the crowd was getting disgruntled about the lateness of the concert, Jade Nolan emerged and headed for the stage.

She sat down, her guitar held in place. A member of the staff adjusted the microphone at the space between her guitar and her face. Without further ado, she started to sing:

Mad Woman in the Attic  
A Stranger wearing my Familiar Face  
A Mad Woman going up ablaze  
Though you can put out the house on fire  
My soul is an Ember that will never tire  
I am a Mad Woman  
In Your Attic  
Let me Out  
Let my all consuming fire out  
Come on in  
And let me Out  
Never, Never put my Fire out  
A Mad Woman in the Attic  
A Stranger with a charred burnt Face  
You think now I'm just a basket case  
But you have only burned flesh and body raw  
Now Hear a Soul's enraged passions roar  
You are a Mad Woman  
In My Attic  
Let me In  
Let me my self-consuming fire in  
Come on Out  
And let it Out  
I'm putting my Fire Out  
Mad Woman in the Attic  
A Whore with Mary's Unblemished, Unpainted Face  
Trapped by you in this dark abysmal holy place  
Though my wings' plucked I can't fly  
But I have a soul that refuses to die  
I am The Mad Woman in the Attic  
Come on in  
Bring me Out  
Let me in to bring your fire Out  
Let me out to bring your fire Out  
I'm coming Out  
My Endless Passions' Fire's Out  
Never, never put my Fire Out, Out, Out, Out, Out…

Her voice trailed off, like the dying wisp of a cigarette smoke. A crowd of respectful silence, and suddenly, applause that fell heavily like hailstones. Jade Nolan suddenly rose, and left the stage. Everyone was stunned.

Jill Callahan sprung from her seat at the same time. She followed Jade Nolan through the door with the sign 'Staff Only'.

Rising murmurs of protest. Grayson had rushed to the stage to apologize. Grace and Gabriel looked at each other in perplexity. Emma Kobayashi just smiled.

"I guess show is cancelled," she grinned.

* * * * *

Avoiding glances. Shuffled feet. Lips on the edge of something spoken. The disarray of bodily rituals that conveyed the human condition of discomfort better than the silence looming like a medieval fortress wall. Polite small talks to puncture the wall. Yet, better to puncture loud silent walls with reed arrows.

Grace stood at the door to her car, her keys in hand but she made no move to open it. She told herself it was to wait for Emma. Gabriel stood near her, too near for either of them to be comfortable. Grace wished at once that Emma and Jill did not need to go to the ladies at the same time. Even Jill's company was acceptable.

"So, how do you like the show?" Gabriel tried again with little uncertainty.

"Short, definitely. One song. I expected somemore. I don't think it was her best performance but--I felt something back there. She puts a lot of emotions into the songs."

"It's a sad song."

"With strange lyrics."

Silence. Again.

"Your friend, Emma. Interesting company. She's PhD?"

"She's the Roger S. Berlind Distinguished Professor of Humanities at Princeton University."

Gabriel winced, a smart blow to the ego that was almost physical. A loud reminder he was several notches short of Grace Nakamura. "What's that?" 

"Honorary title of Professor for outstanding achievement in the humanities. Her PhD's from the Sorbonne."

"High-browed. Like you."

"No," a far away look in her eyes. "She's everything I wanted to be." Her hands moved up and down the length of her arms, rubbing warmth into goose-pimpled skin. There was an infinite depth of melancholy within the shadows of her downcast eyes.

Gabriel reached out and touched her, unwonted sensitivity in this seemingly common tactile contact. Grace raised her eyes, a hesitant-- nearly hopeful gaze watchful through her dark straight fringe. His heart quickened and the touch was withdrawn--along with the death of all expectations.

Grace tore her face away from him, arms tighter around a gaping heart. The shadow and feminist pride concealed her but Gabriel understood, empathized even the hurt that would be marked on that well-scrubbed China doll face.

Something crumpled inside him. Gabriel had never known how much he had appropriated Grace's spiritual and emotional strength. It terrified him that he would lose this bulwark before he found his way.

"Grace," Gabriel tried to speak to her, but footsteps behind them destroyed the moment, maybe forever. Maybe for only a while. He did not know. He only understood that they were both going to hate this for sometime.

"Ready to go?" Kobayashi asked without the usual jaunty attitude she carried around. Grace unlocked the car-door on the driver's side. The locks on the passenger's doors sprung open automatically.

"Goodnight, Gabriel," Kobayashi waved as she climbed into the car.

* * * * *

Kobayashi had known since she was a child that she had an unhealthy habit of watching people. As though everyone and everything were specimens passing through a microscope for her. She was polite and unobtrusive enough not to stare of course, being well-brought up. Yet it was not her observations that were so disturbing, but rather the details concerning their habits and personalities that she manages to pick up simply by watching them for a few minutes or so. Perhaps that was why she had written so many biographical studies of long dead people. It was her uncanny ability to see the macro in the micro. Like a modern day Sherlock Holmes with her own brand of literary deductions.

But having the advantage of knowing Grace Nakamura since the latter was four, Kobayashi needed little time to come to the conclusion that she was not happy. The granite hardness on her face also helped.

"So, did I interrupt anything back there?"

"No, nothing much," Grace said unconvincingly.

"He's a writer, isn't he?" Emma said to fill the empty space in the air. Grace nodded.

"You're angry at me."

"No," Grace replied, vexed. "What's your research about?" she said to change the subject.

"I'm planning a biography of Creole Emily Dickinson. Along with a collection of her poems of course."

"Pardon? A Creole Emily Dickinson?"

"It's something I found in the university library when I was visiting the University of Montreal," Emma elaborated. 

"Apparently around the 19th Century some of the French-speaking poets living in Louisiana began circulating their privately published works among the Creole and French upper-crust. It was in part a reaction against the influx of English-speaking Americans coming into the South with their northern ways and vulgar money. The French and Creole elite wished to assert their cultural and artistic superiority. Among these French snobs I found an exceptionally gifted woman poet by the pseudonym of _Le Rouge Coquelicot d'Nouvelle Orleans_."

"_The Red Poppy of New Orleans_. How quaint."

"Do not mock. She is melodramatic, perhaps, but her poetry is sheer artistry. Absolute silken verse with velvet texture. I am determined to exhume this buried poet."

"Disturbing the dead. How morbid," Grace remarked. "Somehow I missed the sense of accomplishment one gets from research. I used to enjoy the amount of time I spend in the library and the archives for my theses," Grace revealed unawaringly. Emma leaned her cheek into a curled hand, and watched Grace.

Out of the blue, "Why didn't you continue with your PhD, Grace?" 

"My goodness! Have you been talking to my mother?"

Emma smiled slightly. "I have spoken to many people. Your father and even Professor Barclay--all of whom are unhappy with your decision, especially when none of them could see the reason for it. But yes, your mother is the main motivator of my concerns."

"You're not telling me you're in New Orleans for my sake?"

Emma expressed disappointment with a few facial twitches. "Think about how egocentric that sounds, Grace Nakamura. I'm here extending professional courtesy and for research. The fact that you're here happens to be incidental."

"Sorry--it's just that you've touched a sore soft here. It's like talking to Mother all over again."

"Grace, by the way: what is it between you and Gabriel?"

"Em, now you are really talking like my mother. Please stop."

Kobayashi laughed candidly. "Actually, I quite like your mother. I've always found her a formidable woman of infinite patience."

Grace chortled. "Patience is a sporadic concept with my mother."

"Well, she was the only piano teacher I had with any patience with me. Grace, your attempt at digressing is feeble and it insults me. Stop that."

"Then can we talk about something else besides my education and Gabriel."

"So, they are separate issues then?" Kobayashi probed. Grace ignored her as she turned at a curb.

"Very well--let's talk about--Jill Callahan. I like her." Grace was still silent. Kobayashi sighed.

"What do you have against Jill?" she asked.

"I thought we weren't going to talk about it?"

"About your education and Gabriel, yes, we're not going to talk about them. So, does your resentment of Jill Callahan have anything to do with her being with Gabriel tonight?"

"Look, Em: I just don't like her. Okay?"

"If you say so. But do you doubt that Gabriel has something to do with it?"

"Em--_shut up_," Grace snapped. Then guiltily, she said more gently, "You don't understand." Emma snorted.

"Yeah, right. Twenty-three years having known you, and I wouldn't understand. I thought we were close, Grace."

"We are--goodness, Em, you're like a sister to me."

"Then why wouldn't I understand?"

"Because it's not rational, all right?" Grace finally admitted, and was ashamed.

"Because she's dating Gabriel?"

"I don't think they're dating. It's just that--Gabriel replaced me with her, all right. And the only qualifications she has for the job are looks and that wild mop of redhair!"

"How do you know that?" Emma asked. "Gabriel said that?"

"No--"

"So you're just jealous for no good reason at a very nice girl because some guy fired you to hire her? You're jealous, aren't you? You like Gabriel, and you're jealous."

"Em!" Grace was dumfounded.

"Do you know what, Grace?"

"What?"

"You need to be a bigger person."

Grace almost lost control of the car for a second. "What do you mean by that?" she managed, injured.

Kobayashi had already turned to stare out the window.

"Exactly what I've said, Grace," she finally replied.

They did not have very much to say to each other after this.

* * * * *

   [1]: mailto:_kosh_@earthling.net



	9. Default Chapter Title

Mad Woman in the Attic

****

By [**Mad Woman**][1]

* * *

Disclaimer: 

The characters of Gabriel Knight, Grace Nakamura, Detective Mosely and the legend of the Schattenjagers are creations and trademarks of Jane Jensen and Sierra-On-Line. 

Apologies: 

The writer of this piece of fan fiction has taken liberties in the atmosphere, history, culture and geography of New Orleans. Please be aware the writer has NEVER been to New Orleans, although it is a life-long wish. Please also be aware that the writer is not American. As far as it is possible and made known to the writer, inaccuracies are corrected. But we are only human and therefore have to live with our mortal inadequacies. 

Thank you.

* * *

Part One

__

I doubt sometimes whether a quiet & unagitated life  
would have suited me--yet I sometimes long for it.

-- Byron

* * *

Chapter 8

9: 30 pm

Mrs McClure had lent one of her old shirts and a pair of Jade's faded shorts to Jill after the latter had finished helping Jade with her shower. Jill recognized that furtive awkwardness in Mrs McClure's eyes when she took the proffered shirt and clean towel. She knows, she told herself, and wondered if Ashley Tremayne had really been so public with her sister's secrets.

There was little said about how Jill was going home. Tremayne had been furious the entire time she drove Jill and her sister back to _Le Bon Temps_. Jade had locked herself up in the bathroom immediately after her only song. Jill was the only one who could convince Jade Nolan to open the door. 

Jade Nolan fell into Jill's arms as soon as the bathroom door was open. The singer was obviously depressed, and weeping. She held on to Jill and refused to let the latter leave her, begging Jill to stay with her. There was no question that Jade Nolan was in no condition to continue with the concert. Finally, Grayson suggested that they take her back home. 

And Jill went along to _Le Bon Temps_ with them.

Changed into her dry clothes, Jill found her way up to the attic, where they had moved Jade. The lights were off in the attic. Jade had moved her bed up against the circle-shaped window in the center of a wall. It stared out at the moon, a pale silver pupil in a large rounded blue-black eye. There was ample walking space--_Le Bon Temps_ was afterall a big house. Bookshelves occupied one of the longest stretch of walls--Jill had always known Jade as a print-junkie-- a wardrobe and a large black chest next to the bed with some books sitting on it. An overhead lamp was fixed onto the wall above the head of Jade's bed. It had a cord where you pull on it to turn it on. Jade was playing with it right now, twisting it between her fingers as she sat up to look out at window. On the ledge outside sat seven small potted plants, in succeeding stages of wither.

Jill hated the place the moment she stepped up into it. The ceiling, conforming to the slopes of the roof, was oppressively low. There was something surrealistic in having the ceiling caving in on one as you walked length-wise towards the walls, and raising when you walk towards the center of the room. She took off her shoes and climbed into the bed. Out of curiosity she glanced out the window.

"Nothing to see," she said, making out only the thick growth of trees of the plantation and some small buildings around the property. Jade touched Jill lightly on her face.

"What's wrong with you?" Jill asked. She pressed her forehead to Jade's so that their noses touched and she spoke to Jade's lips. The breath caressing, like a kiss, but not.

"I just feel so sick of all of this. I'm so sick of the tour. Going up there every night! Sleeping on the bus! On the plane! I just want it to stop!" Jade pulled Jill close to her, holding the latter to her body, breathing in the scent of her shampoo, her talcum powder and--a mild mildew on Mrs McClure's shirt. 

"You were fine this afternoon. What happened?" 

"Just got fucking sick, that's all." Jade stroked the hair away from Jill's neck. She touched the vein on that naked throat. 

"Were you taking your medicine?" Jill asked.

"No, I hate the way those pills make me feel. Jill, don't leave me," Jade whispered sadly, close to Jill's ear. She covered that vein with her lips. Felt a living pulse beneath the skin.

Minutes, seconds--Jade did not know how long it was, nor how Jill came to be undressed. Jade climbed up on her knees, her lover lying on the bed under her, the long tresses of red hair flowing out beneath that serene face like a spreading pool of blood. Jade shuddered at the dark image that passed before her eyes. She blinked hard, and tried instead to focus on the image of a lover in front of her. 

Jill almost glowed under the shower of the pale moonlight. Incandescent, the brilliance of a pure white jade. Jill's lover smiled wanly, and then crumbled into quivering tears. Jill pulled Jade down to her, whispering the gentle comforts that only lost love found could give. 

They both wept that night, sharing memories so sweet they would rise up and choke you in the chest. And they exchanged recollections of pain, glass shards from the past that close around your heart so tightly they cut with every heartbeat. Theirs were tears mingled, the kind only lovers who loved in silence weep. 

They did not make love that night. But they loved. Tenderly, with touch and kisses.

So maybe, they did afterall.

* * * * *

10:15 pm.

Jill woke to check her watch. She realized that she had not informed her Mom where she was this time of the night, and there would be hell when she got back in the morning. 

For now however, she was contented to remain in bed. Where her mother did not know.

She prodded herself up on an elbow and gazed fondly as Jade slept. She happened to look up out the window and saw thin tendrils of clouds wisping across the full moon. She smiled contentedly as she moved her fingers down the small of Jade's back. The moonlight shone on her now, bathing her back in pale light.

Moon._ Luna._ Root word for lunatic. The Mad Woman in the Attic. She kissed Jade on her back gingerly, not wanting to rouse her. 

"I've missed you so much," Jill said softly, touching her lover's hair. 

Then, Jill heard noises like footsteps near the stairs leading up the attic. She dressed hurriedly after she pulled the blanket up around Jade. 

There was no more sound after she was done. Puzzled, Jill started down the stairs to check on the noise.

* * * * *

12:15 pm.

New Orleans nights are opportunities to inspire in one a healthy fear of God. 

Or at least of crime in the abstract.

Gabriel saw two black teenagers squatting near a silver Mercedes when he drove up the parking lot near the St. Louis Cathedral. As he pulled his keys out of the ignition he avoided eye-contact with the boys, whistling as he walked quietly away. With a dead certainty he knew someone was going back on foot tonight. 

Gabriel was always comforted by the sombre night silence in this place of God. A place of rituals and beliefs with its faint but ever present aroma of incense and candles. A space of sheer psychic energy concentrated with his memory of a Voodoo queen with skin of burnished copper and a pure soul of Sun-like splendor. Tetelo, the enslaved Voodoo Queen broke her metal chains with her dark magic and the talisman of the Schattenjäger--yet the same woman doomed all her daughters that came after with chains that ran in their veins--the blood that doomed Malia Geddes and destroyed a life worth much more than Gabriel's. Malia Geddes--a lover who gave all, including life to free and to be free. Gabriel could not walk the ground of Jackson Square without the ghost of Malia Geddes behind him. Nor could he enter St Louis Cathedral without praying--to a silent God he had ignored for so long--for one of the three women in his life who had loved him truly, selflessly.

Many times Gabriel found himself with misted eyes when he thought about Malia. And Tetelo and Gunter Ritter. They had loved as Malia and him had loved, perhaps more, until Gunter betrayed Tetelo to the witch-hunters. The mistake of an ancestor of the Ritters with such profound repercussion for the last of their line. She was the last of Tetelo's line, just as he was the last of Gunter Ritter's. So much pain for a human weakness that Gabriel understood too well he was guilty of. _Schattenjäger._ The title was a pox and poison on his conscience. How does one hunt the Shadow when it haunts him?

What does it mean, being _Schattenjäger_, if he could not have saved Malia? Deep inside him, Gabriel had often wondered if he could have saved her. Did she really have to die? He had conceded as much to Grace that he was a chauvinist--but it was this part of Gabriel that tore his heart when a woman had to die. Grace had a lot to say about his first Blake Backlash novel when it came out, but she was kind enough not to mention its ending.

In his book, where he had at least some control over fate, Malia Geddes did not die.

Gabriel saw a priest coming out of the confessional. It was the same priest who had spoken with Ashley Tremayne last night. It riled him the way he was snubbed tonight. Gabriel promised hell if he saw the bitchy snob again.

As if speaking of the devil, Ashley Tremayne emerged from behind the red confessional curtains. Gabriel rose, and they face each other across the rows of pew.

"Miss Tremayne?" Gabriel mocked with an inflexion. There was a puffiness around her eyes that said she might have been crying.

"Yes, Mr Knight?" she said in her impeccable English. Gabriel was so infuriated with the snobbery in that BBC English. People who moved around in different social circles. 

"What's with the business at The Attic? You act like you never knew me. Now suddenly you seem to recall having met me? What's with you? Some spilt personality or something?" He was rambling, he knew, but he did not care anymore.

A pause. "Maybe." Gabriel was not expecting that.

"You're kidding, right?"

An ambiguous shrug. "I just don't feel like myself most of the time. I don't know who I am anymore, Mr Knight. Sometimes it seems as though I am living someone else's life. I sometimes do things--things that I do not want, do not wish. I have so much regrets. And so little choice." There was a tremor in that voice, something soft in its poignancy, like a tear on a child's cheek.

But little compassion was available at the moment, a heart too filled up with anger. "You talk a helluva lot now, don't you." 

"I can understand your frustration. But really, I had not expected to meet you so soon after last night. I was--ill--prepared."

"And that makes it all right to snub me like shit on your shoes?"

"No," Ashley Tremayne said carefully. "That was unforgivable."

"You're right about that," Gabriel fumed.

"So I shall not apologize, since it will be futile."

All anger dissipated in Gabriel. He chuckled, and shook his head in resignation over ever winning an argument with a woman. In a way, Ashley Tremayne had helped him feel better.

"I can't believe you. You're some piece of work, aren't you? Just what the hell are you trying to pull here?"

"Hell is close to what I have achieved," Ashley Tremayne replied gnomically. Gabriel briefly harbored the thought he was just a fictional character in a novel written by some crappy female writer--and this female writer enjoys throwing all these overwhelmingly exasperating female characters at him, for the sheer joy of it. It was like watching _Xena: Warrior Princess_ even though there are obviously better things to do, simply because it is fun in its stupidity. But he dismissed the thought because it was too preposterous.

"So, what are you here for?" Gabriel proffered as a truce. Tremayne sneered, and shrugged.

"I had just come out from the confessional. I do not believe there is much one can do in there, Mr Knight," she said condescendingly. Gabriel had to admit he deserved it.

"Would you like to talk about it?"

"It?"

"What you told the priest."

"Are you a priest, Mr Knight?"

"No, but I wasn't one either last night," Gabriel reminded her.

"No, last night you were stranger. One that served a convenient function. Tonight you are a friend of my sister's."

"Nah, I'm just Jill's boss. That's all."

"I see. You're Callahan's boss."

"You don't like her much, do you?" Gabriel probed curiously. It was met by a look of consummate hatred. He startled at that. Then it disappeared as fast as it appeared. Tremayne started for the exit.

"Goodbye, Mr Knight. Will you be staying long?" she asked as she strolled out. Knight followed her.

"I think I'm done for the night," he replied. Gabriel rationalized to himself that it was not a lie: he had come here for comfort, and he did feel better now.

* * * * *

Ashley Tremayne and Gabriel stopped over the parking place where her car used to be. She kicked up a small dust cloud as the ugly truth sank in.

"Fuck!" Gabriel heard her swore so eloquently. 

He jingled his keys in front of her.

* * * * *

12:55 pm.

The wind charged wildly against Gabriel as he made his way up the wide path leading to _Le Bon Temps._ "Just keep to the center of the path," Ashley Tremayne had advised him. "Do not deviate. I have no idea what comes out this time of the night among the groves." Gabriel was relieved when he dropped Ashley Tremayne off near her big house. He swooned a little at the wealth implied in the size of the Bon Temps, and watched her until she went in through the front door before turning back.

Gabriel stared ahead on the path he needed to pass for his return to civilzation. Yet a profound apprehension froze him. It was like some unfamiliar primordial fear gripping his heart, this tunnel of Nature created walls. He sat there on his Harley, facing darkness and deep shadows. Living in the city of electric lights, one never realize how deep true darkness was. Never respected the night for its terrors and its concealing power over your senses.

__

Do not deviate, he recalled. Like he was going to. _Goodness, how could they live like this?_ So poised between civilization and primal forest left to grow, with a tunnel of uncertain dark the sole connection between diametric spaces. Gabriel was bounded to a world of familiar artificial light, not these space of natural shadows, primal dark. He roused his own black, oily beast of metal malice in a ready rumble and drove down the center of the path. Never deviating.

He had driven only a few heartbeats before he was halted in the path. A soft human shape stepped out from the uncanny night into his sight. It came slowly towards Gabriel, then stopped several feet away from him. A lone female shape. Long unruly hair. It lifted a hand to him, extended, reaching for Gabriel for all the distance between them. A mouth gaping, moving in inaudible speech. Gabriel got down his Harley, taking a step for that imploring hand.

"Jill," he whispered to the vague form of vacant eyes and ashen lips. He reached out for her, but fingers barely touched when her shape exploded into violent flames!

Gabriel gasped, stumbled. The torched form twisted and writhed in a fiery, agonized dance. He scurried backwards with legs and hands away from the flaming figure, stunned. 

Then, no more. As sudden as a passing breeze the image dissipated. Gabriel climbed to his feet with the help of his bike but his legs gave way beneath him like water. He stank of cold fear and hot flushes.

Gabriel sat there for a while, eyes darting around the darkness wildly for any noise and fleeting lights. He quivered inside his jacket.

It was Jill he saw. Or was it not?

* * * * *

   [1]: mailto:_kosh_@earthling.net



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